


Trust Your Instincts (Or Trust Me)

by lc2l



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-09
Updated: 2011-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lc2l/pseuds/lc2l
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is supposed to kill any wild wolf that strays into pack territory; he knows that even in human form. He is definitely not supposed to corner his foe in an old trucker's cafe, just north of the land his wolves think is safe, and offer to buy him a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust Your Instincts (Or Trust Me)

**Author's Note:**

> written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/kradamadcakes/profile)[**kradamadcakes**](http://community.livejournal.com/kradamadcakes/). Betaed by the amazing [](http://thecooz32.livejournal.com/profile)[**thecooz32**](http://thecooz32.livejournal.com/). *showers with love, cookies and fail!fives*  
>  The poster was made by the also-amazing [](http://katekat1010.livejournal.com/profile)[**katekat1010**](http://katekat1010.livejournal.com/) and was the inspiration for the whole fic.

Adam is supposed to kill any wild wolf that strays into pack territory; he knows that even in human form. He knows that the slight shift in the scents around him--the tangible feeling that 'something is wrong, ' the knowledge that would make his hackles rise if, you know, he still had hackles--is a signal. It is a call to hunt.

He is supposed to find the intruder and rip his throat out. He should knock him down, tear him limb from limb, watch his blood drain into the earth. At the very least he should beat him to within an inch of his life and send him on his merry way to a place far from Adam and Adam's pack.

He is definitely not supposed to corner his foe in an old trucker's cafe, just north of the land his wolves think is safe, and offer to buy him a drink.

The lone wolf is pretty though. Huddled at the very edge of the room, hands clasped around the biggest mug of coffee he could get and watching Adam with big, wary eyes. Even the plaid shirt looks good on him, and Adam had always assumed no one could get away with plaid.

The wolf's nostrils flare, but he must be newly turned because he doesn't seem to know what it means. "I'm good," he says, careful not to meet Adam's eyes as he raises his mug. "Thank you."

He has a low southern drawl that makes Adam's skin tingle. If not for the way every single waft of air made Adam’s instincts cry out for the kill, this loner would be the perfect man."Well can we talk, at least? I'd love to get to know you better..."

"Kris," says the wolf. "With a K. Kris Allen."

"Kris," Adam finishes, taking Kris's hand and leading him to a table before the loner can come up with a reason why not. "I'm Adam. Adam Lambert. I live an hour over that way. You're new here, right?"

"I'm not here," he places his coffee mug down, releasing it very slowly then staring at his hands as though not sure what to do with them now but doesn't want to move them out of sight in case they sprout claws. "I mean, I am here. But I'm just passing through."

Adam's inner wolf settles a little at that news, but still wishes Adam would just kill the intruder before he has a chance to go anywhere. "Where are you headed?"

"I –" Kris starts, then stops, dragging a hand through his hair and taking a long drink from his mug to delay an answer. A touch of foam is left on his upper lip when he places the mug down and his tongue flicks out to swipe it off. Adam's wolf whines a little, momentarily in agreement with his body that there may be more interesting activities to try with this loner than ripping and tearing (though leaping and biting are still very much on the table).

"I'm sorry," Kris stalls. "What was the question?"

Adam pushes his wolf down again—the change last night and another one tomorrow means the wolf is loud today. "I asked where you were headed. I'm guessing you don't know either?"

Kris swallows, placing his hands on the table, then the bench, then his lap, and finally back to the table again. He's jumpy, Adam recognizes. Everyone—even Adam's pack wolves–feels it in the days between the first few changes. Kris has it worse, of course, because he's not surrounded by family and friends, no one is telling him what to do and his instincts are screaming that Adam is an enemy. "Just away," he says feebly. "From people. I... it's a creative retreat. I need some quiet. Away from people. Far away."

Adam reaches out to place his hands on top of Kris's, holding them against the table. "Running away from something?"

For the first time, Kris's wolf side wins out over his southern charm. He pulls back and stands up, away from Adam’s hand, faster than Adam would have thought possible for a newly-turned. "I – no – I just – I have to go."

Adam stands too, just as fast but with a grace that comes from years of practice. He doesn't move forward, but Kris still flinches back. "Why don't you come back to my place?"

"No!" He almost jumps backwards, but stops himself just in time. The wolf and the man are clearly fighting for control: Kris wants to stay and be the good polite boy, and the wolf wants to run and run and never stop until Adam's scent is just a fading memory. "I mean, I can't. I don't want to. I have to keep driving." He pulls back and Adam has no real choice but to let him go. Well, let him go or give his wolf free reign and rip Kris's throat out in the middle of the diner.

Except even the wolf seems to be having second thoughts now because Kris is hot and is also the least threatening werewolf in the world (and that includes Archie). Also, if Kris drives too far he'll stray into Gokey's territory and that motherfucker won't hesitate before tearing the head off any loner that encroaches on his land, adorable dark eyes or no.

Adam half runs out of the diner determined to catch Kris before he leaves. This isn't difficult, as it happens, because Kris still in the car park tugging at the door to a battered old truck. The dashboard, Adam notices, is covered in deep scratches and the seats are barely there. All that remains of the side window is a few glass shards and the door appears to be wedged in too tight for Kris's puny human strength to handle.

"Wait," Adam calls, pulling a pen from his pocket and scrawling his mobile number and an address on the back of a napkin. "Here." He holds it at arms length, not wanting to scare Kris any more.

"I'm fine, I don't need –"

"You've got another change tonight, Kris. You won't make it to the desert in time, you've worked out by now that locking yourself in the car doesn't work."

"What the –" Kris pulls back a little. "Who are you? That smell..."

"Tonight," Adam says. "That address. You won't hurt anyone, I promise." He waits for Kris to take the scrap and read what's written on it.

"I don't think –" he starts.

"And no one will hurt you," Adam adds, somewhat recklessly because still has no idea what his wolf will do once it gets full control. "I promise that too."

"Right." Kris tugs his door again. The handle falls off in his fingers and he snarls, snatching at the window with a growl and tearing the door off its hinges.

He glances down, shocked, and then drops it on the floor as though it's burning his hands. "I should be going," he says, gesturing to his massacred truck. His hands are shaking worse than ever and the fact that he is even thinking about driving that death trap proves he has no intentions of taking Adam up on his offer.

"You are not driving that," Adam says, forcing himself to use words because his wolf doesn't want to talk, it wants to growl a threat to teach Kris a lesson about being stupid.

Kris is already halfway up to the driver's seat. Adam reaches out one hand to tug him down and Kris actually spins and snarls at him. A real snarl, teeth bared and eyes flashing. Adam has a brief moment of hope that Kris isn't alienating his wolf-side as much as Adam had feared.

Then Kris actually tries to turn it into a cough, shaking Adam's hand off with as much force as a small kitten. Still trying to pretend he's human. "I really have to get out of here so, um, sorry but –"

"No," Adam says, ignoring all human forms of intimidation and going straight for alpha-command level one. Sure, Kris isn't in his pack, but a large, angry alpha can tell pretty much anyone what to do. "I am not letting you kill yourself in that thing."

"Um," says Kris, dropping his head to bare his neck (under the pretence of looking at the car door, of course). If he had a tail, it would be firmly between his legs. "You can't actually tell me what to do. I don't think. So I should go and... um..."

Adam picks up the car door and pushes Kris sideways so he can cram it back into the door shaped hole. "My car's round the other side. My house is about half an hour away. It's a bit of a drive but just wait until you've spent a full moon in the grounds. Totally worth it."

"My truck –" Kris starts, feebly, but he is one good stare away from dropping to the ground and exposing his belly, so Adam isn't all that worried.

"With me," he says, turning to walk towards his car. "Now."

Kris casts one last forlorn look at his truck, then follows Adam around the diner.

-

Kris is having a bad day. Scratch that, Kris is having a bad life. His on-again-off-again girlfriend had dumped him permanently when she found him kissing a boy and as much as he tried to tell her experimentation was only natural she seemed to think he was as gay as a... as something very fucking gay and they were off forever. (And maybe kissing boys while in a kind-of-relationship with a woman was somewhat gay and a little bit unfair but they had technically been on a break and he had always had the best of intentions.)

She then claimed him as her 'gay best friend' which meant he had to do all the things he'd previously done as her boyfriend, only he didn't get sex after. The boy he had messed around with had never called, he was too nervous to go after other boys and then Kris had dropped out of college to pursue a music career. A _career_. Yeah right. All hundreds of late nights playing shitty music for shittier crowds in the shittiest pubs had got him was an old truck, a cheap-as-dirt apartment and no love life to speak of.

Kris was no closer to a record deal than he would've been if he'd taught himself to throw darts instead of play guitar.

Oh, and now he was a werewolf which meant he'd had to leave his apartment and his occasional chances of work to try and get away from cities and small towns and pretty much anywhere he might accidentally hurt someone. He'd fucked his truck up trying to change in it, in the hope that if he locked himself in he wouldn't hurt anyone which left him the proud owner of nothing at all.

He had only had the foresight to lock himself up thanks to years of cheap cable horror movies and then in wolf form he'd just smashed the window. He couldn't remember killing anyone—and he could remember the whole night, which never happened in the movies—but the smells had been overwhelming and most of them had been wrong and Kris wasn't sure he'd be able to go another night without attacking anyone.

Also walking back through the city naked was humiliating.

Kris glances back over his shoulder just in time to see the door fall back out of its hole and onto the ground. The whole vehicle seems to sag a little and there is something suspicious leaking out of the back end.

Maybe Adam was right about the whole 'don't drive that truck' thing. Not that it made Kris trust him. Adam was still way too big, he'd picked up that door like it was nothing, so strong too and he still smelled like 'run away now or you will regret it.'

He also smelled like late nights, old trees and rain on leaves, delicious smells to go with beautiful blue eyes and a gorgeous smile but Kris was far too used to having crushes on the most inappropriate people to let that bother him unduly. "You know, I was always taught not to get into a car with a stranger," he says, jogging to catch up with Adam's deceptively fast-moving back. "I think maybe I should just walk from here."

Adam barks a laugh and stops to look at him. "Do you really think you can walk further in—" he glances at his watch. "—two hours than the wolf can run in a night?"

"This wolf thing—" Kris starts because no one else is supposed to know and Adam just acts like it should be obvious.

"You're a werewolf," Adam informs him without preamble. Apparently it is obvious. "You changed last night, I'm guessing for the first time. After you saw the mess of your truck, you knew you had to get out of the city. You didn't know where to go so you headed for the desert and you are the luckiest lone wolf in the whole fucking world because of all the pack territories you could have wondered blindly into, you wondered blindly into mine."

"Pack territories?"

Adam sighs. "You have a lot to learn, loner. When you were driving, you crossed a river, right? And when you were over it you smelled something and there was a shiver down your spine but you ignored your wolf side the same way you've been determinately pretending it didn't exist since you first got bitten."

"Um," says Kris, remembering the shudder he got as he drove across the river which made him almost drive into the wrong lane and get run down by a fucking million tonne truck. He had assumed he was just tired, or had pretended to assume he was just tired because it was easier than listening to the growling in the back of his head wordlessly calling him an idiot.

"That was you crossing into my territory," Adam continues, starting to walk again. "Your wolf side was trying to let you know so you would leave instead of wondering in blindly and getting killed by the alpha wolf of the area. In any other pack territory, the alpha would have torn you to bits or run you back into wildlands by now."

Kris has to jog to keep up. Somehow even walking normally Adam has a sinewy grace and unnatural speed. Kris has never thought the word 'loped' could be applied to a person before, but there is definitely some loping going on here.

Loping shows off Adam's ass amazingly. "But you're not going to?"

Adam pulls open the doors to a sleek, shiny black car. If Kris knew anything about cars, he suspects he would be very impressed, but as it is he just thinks it looks completely out of place alongside battered old pick-up trucks and cars with more rust than paint.

But the doors aren't falling off and it probably starts without Adam having to reach through deep slashes in the dashboard to hold the wires together which makes it an improvement on Kris's truck by a long way.

Adam climbs in first and Kris is just going to get in after him when he catches a whiff of the air inside the car and is suddenly standing three meters away. Adam leans across the centre console to look up at him and grin. His teeth are definitely sharper than they should be. "Feeling wolfish?"

"You know you said that thing about my instincts," Kris says, forcing himself to walk back towards the car. "My instincts do not like this." It doesn't smell bad, as such, it just smells like Adam and something inside of him has decided that that is bad, even though it clearly isn't because Adam isn't killing him.

 _Yet_ , points out a small voice inside his head. _Adam isn't killing you yet._

"Get in the car," Adam says, in that weird voice that is the same reason Kris is here instead of in his truck driving far, far away.

Kris wrinkles his nose against the smell and climbs into the car.

-

Adam pulls up alongside the house with an hour until the full moon. Kris climbs out as soon as Adam unlocks the door, taking deep breaths that don't smell quite so much of danger. Adam opens his door as well to get away from the smells of 'kill it or fuck it' that had been distracting him the whole journey as his wolf side and his libido attempted to come to some kind of agreement.

To distract himself he glances over at Kris, who has wrapped his arms around himself and is trembling more with every breath he takes. Adam has never been a loner, but he once visited Gokey's house to thrash out a tentative truce that meant he’d never have to look at the asshole's face again. He remembers that every step he took closer to the heart of Gokey's territory made his skin crawl and his feet more and more desperate to be paws racing in the opposite direction. "Thinking of running, loner?"

Kris jumps, eyes widening as though he is actually considering the possibility that Adam can read his mind. "I – um – no – maybe."

Adam fights the urge to laugh—maybe Kris isn't a werewolf after all, with eyes like that he could be more of a were baby deer or a were puppy—and moves up behind him. He curls his arms around Kris's waist and buries his nose in the Loner's hair, surrounding himself with Kris's scent. _See,_ he tells his inner wolf. _We can do this._

"You're not going anywhere," he tells Kris.

Kris relaxes a little against him, as though life is easier now he doesn't have to fret about running away. Adam reflects that his inner wolf got it totally wrong here. There is no way Kris is the slightest hint of a threat to anything. He’s also really cuddly and beneath all the conflicting 'kill it, fuck it, keep it' scents, his hair smells of apples.

"Um," Kris says, shifting a little, which Adam takes as shorthand for 'I can feel your boner and it is freaking me out can you please stop touching me now.' "So what happens now?"

Adam lets go reluctantly and Kris takes two quick steps away, a smooth movement accompanied by a flash of a glance up at Adam through dark lashes. The steps are perfectly innocent, but for a moment Adam wants to snarl to assert his dominance because Kris has never been this wolf-like. It suits him, smooth graceful movements silent on the dirt floor.

Then he is Kris again, standing awkwardly with no idea where to put his hands and no clue where to look. "Um," he says again.

Adam smiles and steps after him, smoother and quieter. Kris makes a tiny sound that might be a whimper, dropping his head submissively as Adam rests a hand against the small of his back. "Now you meet the pack."

-

The whole place smells very strongly of 'get out while you still can' but for some reason Kris's supposed werewolf instincts come second to Adam's hand on his back guiding him towards the main doors. Kris should've known having the wild feral independence of the wolf inside him would still not be enough for him to stop rolling over and baring his belly to any cute boy who crossed his path.

Adam's hand is warm. Kris kind of wishes Adam was still wrapped around him. As much as the smell made him want to flee, Adam is big and warm and beautiful and probably only brought him back here because it'll be easier to hide his corpse so Kris needs to stop getting his hopes up and get some cuddles in before he is brutally murdered by wolves.

The house is huge, a veritable mansion with a driveway that took at least five minutes to get to the end of, even after driving for half an hour across tiny tracks that could barely be called roads. Kris can see why it was a good place to change, no one could live anywhere near and the huge house must hide a large garden out the back.

It must be big enough to fit at least fifty people, more if they squash up small. It's easily big enough to be a small hotel and Kris can't help wondering how many of the pack there are. Adam on his own could tear Kris apart in an instant, and with a thousand wolves at his command all smelling Kris as an enemy...

"Does the pack live here?" he asks, trying to distract himself with conversation.

"Most of them," Adam replies casually. "It's easier than driving out every full moon, it's reassuring to be surrounded by familiar scents and we're all one big family, really. Some people have families in other places too, some people come from wolf families."

"Wolf families?"

"The wolf can be inherited, as well as transferred. You were bitten, I was born a wolf. My parents are wolves, my brother is a wolf. Monte lives here, he was a bitten-wolf but his wife is a born-wolf. They have a few cubs now." He guides Kris through a door and into a surprisingly small and homely kitchen. The antiquated facade of the house is replaced inside by white walls, pine cabinets and a sleek silver fridge that wouldn't be out of place on a space ship. "There're also a few bitten wolves here, wolves that have found us or people from the area who were turned. There was a particularly violent wolf in a neighbouring pack a while back and he bit a load of people inside our territory. That makes them ours to take care of." He pulls out a chair and gestures for Kris to sit at the table. "Are you hungry?"

Kris nods, because he is starving and he spent the last of his money on the mug of coffee that he didn't even get a chance to drink. "So what happens if someone is bitten outside of any territories?"

Adam glances back at him from the fridge. "That person would be a lone wolf. Pack wolves don't like lone wolves, generally they kill any that cross pack boundaries."

Oh. Kris finds he isn't as hungry anymore. The window looks small and far away, but he thinks maybe he could reach it before Adam finds whatever it is he's looking for in the fridge. He pushes his chair back half an inch.

"Stay," Adam says, without looking round. He can read minds, he can totally read minds and Kris would fucking swear it. "Do you like burgers?"

"Please don't kill me," Kris says. "I didn't mean to come onto your territory. I don't know what I'm doing, I was just trying to go somewhere where I wasn't going to hurt anyone and I can totally leave if you'll just take me back to my truck. I'll be gone before you even know I'm—"

Adam crosses the kitchen in the blink of an eye and tilts Kris's head back so he is staring into those big blue eyes. This is probably the most inappropriate of all Kris's inappropriate crushes but Kris totally wishes he could kiss him right now. "No one is going to kill you. How many times do I have to say it?"

Kris can feel himself turning pink and Adam isn't looking away. "Maybe one 'no one's going to kill you' for every three 'pack wolves kill lone wolves'," he offers.

Adam stares at him for a moment longer, then laughs. "Okay, sorry. You're right, I'm contradicting myself. We're not exactly the most conventional pack and I'm in charge so if I say no one's going to kill you, no one's going to kill you." He turned back to the fridge and pulls out three boxes of burgers, finding an industrial sized grill and dropping at least twenty onto the rack.

"I'm not that hungry," Kris says.

Adam pushes the grill into the oven and sits down opposite with a smile. "No, but the pack are going to smell one burger cooking and then they will all be down here, wanting food—" he breaks off, apparently seeing something over Kris's shoulder. "And the feeding begins."

Kris spins around to see a man with the craziest blonde hairstyle ever frowning at him. As Kris meets his eyes, they narrow and the man's lip curls back a little to reveal a row of shining white teeth.

"Mine," Adam snaps, a faint hint of a growl underpinning his voice. "Back down, Tommy."

The blonde—Tommy—glances at Adam then shrugs and tosses his head, walking towards the oven as though Kris has been beneath his dignity all along. He checks on Adam's twenty burgers then pulls out another grill pan and starts dropping more raw slabs of meat onto it. "Cass wants three, Brad wants four."

"And neither of them can get up?" Adam queries. "I want Kris to meet the pack."

"It has a name? Really?" Tommy turns around to examine Kris a second time. "Better you than me. He smells needy."

Kris opens his mouth to protest, but Tommy gives him a dry look and he closes it again just in time for the door to open, a girl with violently red hair and blonde woman arguing loudly as they enter. "All I'm saying is that if Adam wants to bring loners home, people shouldn't complain so much when I try to wear perfume. At least what I buy is supposed to smell nice."

"But it doesn't," the woman protests. "At least Adam's pet is natural, that bottled stink you buy is just chemicals of who knows what."

Adam coughs loudly. "Lisa, Allison, this is Kris. He's going to be changing with us."

"So I'm allowed make-up and hair dye, which is also just chemicals, but trying to smell nice to go on a date with a boy I like is against the rules. Is that what you're saying?"

Tommy looks away from Kris for the first time. "Why are you dating a human anyway? When has that story ever ended happily ever after?"

The red head pouted. "Well I'm not going to get a pack wolf, am I? The only guy close to my age is Archie and don't think I don't know what's going on between him and Cook. I'm seventeen, not five." She pulls back the chair next to Kris and drops into it, leaning in to sniff his shoulder shamelessly. "Maybe I should just date the loner."

Adam snarls loud enough that all conversation in the room dies leaving Kris sitting in the middle of a forest of scents that all make him want to run for the hills and Adam's eyes are on him saying 'don't you dare move.' Kris can feel himself shaking as the door behind Adam opens and more people enter.

The first one smells like Adam and like wolf and like danger and Kris doesn't have time to think before he is rocking his chair back and dropping to the floor an instant before the man leaps through the spot where Kris’s head had been moments before.

Then Adam is in the way, pushing the man back hard with a growl that is all wolf. "Mine," he says again, turning to bend down beside Kris in front of the whole pack. "He's staying with us and no one is going to hurt him."

Tommy laughs softly in the corner. "For the next half hour until the full moon, at any rate. Good luck stopping your wolf from tearing his head off once the change comes."

Kris glances at Adam and the moment of doubt on the man's face is all he needs. He moves faster than he knew he was capable of, under the table and out the back door, slamming it behind him and running for the trees.

-

Adam curses, pushing himself upright and turning on Tommy. "What the fuck was that for?"

Tommy shrugs eloquently, turning to the oven to check on the food again. "I was just wondering how much you had told him. Apparently you didn't mention the whole 'everyone in this room is barely resisting the urge to kill you in human form and in under an hour resisting won't even be an option.'"

Adam snarls, pinning him against the counter. "Are you looking for a fight, Tommy Joe Ratliff, because if not you can leave any time you want."

Tommy meets his eyes for one defiant moment, and then pushes Adam back so he can slink away without a backwards glance. "I'll see you in the forest," he offers as a parting shot. "Just howl when the hunt starts."

Adam turns to Neil who is watching him with the same _what the fuck?_ glare as Tommy. Adam doesn’t miss the fact that the two who never have put much effort into restraining their wolf are the two who came closest to attacking Kris. He can’t help but think of how that doesn’t exactly bode well for the moment when everyone becomes unrestrained.

Adam pulls himself up to his full height, looking around the room at his pack. "The first person to hurt him leaves the pack. The second person leaves the pack. Any wolf that harms a hair on that loner's head better be off pack territory by sunrise or they will fucking regret it. You all smelled him; remember the smell and control yourselves. There are cages in the basement for anyone who thinks they might have a problem with that."

"I'm not protesting," Allison starts. "He's cute and he seems nice even though his smell is distracting. Not exactly unpleasant, but it sets all my instinct on overdrive. I'm just wondering why we're protecting him? Because we all assumed you drove all the way to the diner on a full moon night to kick him out of the territory or rip his head off."

Adam takes a moment to come up with an answer which isn't 'because he is gorgeous' or 'because I think maybe he likes me back.'

"He's new to this, he's scared, he's fighting the wolf when he should be embracing it. This isn't some wild loner looking for easy victims, this is a young man who left everything he knows to try and find a place where he won't hurt anyone. This is a man who is fighting his wolf side with all he's got, even when it's trying to protect him. He needs guidance and he needs help. He doesn’t need to be attacked and run out of town."

Adam's mom nods slowly from the corner of the room. She somehow always enters without anyone noticing. One day Adam will figure out how she does it. "Do you want him in the pack?"

He does. He wants Kris to live with them and embrace his wolf side. He wants to have Kris in the house every day where he can talk to him and see him and, okay, flirt with him.

He wants to have Kris beside him on the full moon when they run. He wants to breath in Kris's scent and have his instincts cry 'family' not 'threat.'

"We'll see how tonight goes," he says, glancing at the clock. "I guess we should eat and get ready." It isn't what he wants to do, he wants to run outside, hunt down Kris and drag him back somewhere Adam can watch him. Somewhere he knows Kris will be safe.

But that will be easier with four paws, wolf senses, and a pack that has to do as he says. So instead he gets the burgers out of the oven and they eat them with their fingers, shedding clothes across chairs and the floor as they head in a group for the back door.

The moon is nearly high. Adam kicks his briefs into a pile with his pants and socks and runs a hand through his hair. "Well. Let's hunt." He throws out a note which runs up and down his entire range until it turns into a howl.

The pack howls with him.

-

Kris's clothes lie in a shredded heap on the ground. He can hear howling somewhere from behind, or maybe it’s ahead of him. He keeps running, trying to get away from the smell, out of pack territory, but it never seems to weaken. Everywhere he can smell Tommy, who had said he would die tonight, and the dark haired man who attacked him. He can sense Adam who is alpha—his wolf brain knows this so clearly even though his human mind can't quite comprehend it—which makes Kris want to bare his neck and wait to be killed.

So he keeps running until he reaches a river and then he runs along the bank, cuts open his paw on a stone and has to stop to lick it clean then limp through the trees. He can see clearly, every twig and branch. Every movement of a bush makes his whole body tense, ears pricking up and nose lifting, searching for the scents of wolf or person.

But it's only ever a rabbit or a mouse and he relaxes again, licks his paw clean again, and keeps limping through the trees, searching for the end of the forest.

He's starving. He hasn't eaten since before the last change and his stomach growls at the thought of chasing one of the rabbits, pinning it down and tearing into the flesh.

By the time he has limped over to the bush and nosed inside it, though, the rabbit is long gone.

A noise in the distance makes Kris's ears prick up again. This is no rabbit. There is a group of animals coming from behind, large animals in a large group.

He raises his nose to catch the scents in the breeze. He smells the blond and the red head and—most importantly—Adam, getting closer every minute.

He tries to run again, but putting weight on his inured paw makes him crumple to the dirt. He's forced back onto three paws, limping and dripping blood on the leaves as the pack gets closer, closer...

A dark brown wolf steps out in front of him. Kris recognises the smell as something that was in the house, clinging to the kitchen and to Tommy, but the person never came down. Kris turns to run sideways as another wolf steps out. A female. Smells like the blonde woman. His only remaining escape is the river and he is just turning to run that way—he'd rather take his chances with the current than with the pack—when Tommy slinks up sideways and sits calmly at the water's edge, watching Kris as if to say _'Really? You thought you could escape?'_

Kris turns on the spot to watch the rest of the pack step out of the trees. Adam is in the lead, a black mass with bright blue eyes, flanked by a red female and a smaller, scrawnier black male. Adam pads forward two more steps closer to Kris who curls his injured paw close to his chest, pulls his tail between his legs, ears down.

Adam leaps. His paws hit Kris's shoulders, pinning him to the ground in one swift movement. Kris leans his head back to bare his throat and closes his eyes, waiting for his life to be over.

Then Adam dips his muzzle and slowly licks along Kris's nose.

 _Mine_ , the gesture seems to say, as Kris tentatively reopens his eyes to see Adam watching him. _Mine._

Adam turns his head and barks something to the other wolves, who fade back into the undergrowth as though they were never there. Adam is left, licking Kris's snout again, followed by his neck and Kris doesn't feel so much like a pinned victim now as a cub being given a particularly enthusiastic bath. Adam spends at least five minutes on his injured paw, licking it clean and nudging it off the ground until it starts to heal. Then he finally climbs off Kris and nudges him to his feet.

He doesn't smell dangerous anymore. He smells like alpha and pack and _mine._

When Adam pads into the trees, Kris follows.

-

Adam wakes up naked in the middle of the forest with his arms wrapped around a sleeping Kris. He smells of mud, trees and the dew that covers both of them. Also pack, family and a night of hot wolf sex.

Adam smiles and closes his eyes. _Mine_ , he thinks happily.

The wolf rumbles its agreement and Kris shifts closer, as though he can hear and stirs a little. "Adam," he murmurs.

Adam kisses him, not caring about the morning breath or the hint of rabbit on Kris's tongue. "Welcome to the pack."  



End file.
